PROJECTS

Skyword

Your engineering team has made profound advances: the software that controls a communications chipset they’ve been working on for over a year will soon be ready for its debut. You’re the product marketing manager that can talk geek with the best of them, but you can’t say a thing to your content marketing team—because you don’t have one. You’ve got enough engineers to code a new parting of the Red Sea, but anyone to put winning sales words in place and use the latest marketing technology to w...

Skyword

As Mark Twain said after his latest marketing promotion, “The reports of the death of the email campaign are greatly exaggerated.” As any marketing maven knows, email lives, with a vengeance, and remains one of the biggest hammers in any marketer’s toolbox.
But as you know all too well, bad email promotions are death warmed over: email done wrong does your promos and your products a lethal turn.
Consider this scenario: You’re the VP of marketing for an SMB company that sells luxury goods onli...

Skyword

The words are magical. “Once upon a time…” and you are seven again. There might be castles, dragons, or spaceships. Your brain—that thing that fixates on the overdue electric bill, the anxiety-inducing headline, the murky future—vaults away from worry and embraces the story. Storytelling is one of the most ancient of human arts, but tellingly, a good story told today offers the same irresistible invitation as ever.
As Rachel Gillett said in this Fast Company piece, “When we read a story, not ...

Skyword

Stories are food. You can make a reasonable argument that stories are a human nutritional requirement of the emotional-developmental type—food for your brain, you may call it. We share collective stories in our social structures and personal ones within our consciousness, and all influence our motivations, actions, and reflections. In the business world, brand storytelling is now close to a movement, rooted in customer empathy and connection.
Tom Gerace, Skyword’s founder and CEO, has been a ...

goindy.life

In my wayward days, I used to do a lot of hitchhiking. On two separate occasions (both long-distance hitchhikes) I lost my wallet. On both of those occasions, my wallet contained all the money I had in the world. Both times I turned around. You might not have experienced such concentrated blows to your finances in your freelancing career, but “debt and freelancers” are too often two linked terms.
That’s a link that needs breaking.
There are ways to protect your wallet from the crippling combi...

goindy.life

As a freelancer, there are some basic fundamentals to fulfill if you want to be successful, including market your business, communicate well with clients and grow your skills. But there’s one fundamental that can’t be forgotten, or it’ll shatter the bright mirror of your business: meeting deadlines.
Deadlines aren’t loosey-goosey suggestions — the word “dead” in there should give you a sense of their rigidity. Of course, even the shining stars of freelance reliability miss a deadline every no...

goindy.life

I have a thing for cool old cars. Over the years, I’ve had a ’68 Mustang, a ’71 Volvo P1800, a ’63 Mercury Monterey — the list goes on and on. However, because I don’t come from old money (or any money, for that matter), these cars have been my daily drivers, not my Sunday polish. And because I’m much better with a wax job than a valve job, I’ve had to pay mechanics to keep those babies breathing. Talk about unexpected expenses.
But you see, by owning such cars, I invited the unexpected expen...

sidehustleschool.com

goindy.life

If you’ve been running your freelance business for a while, you probably have some skills that set you apart. For instance, if you’re a freelance opera singer, you can probably shatter wine glasses at 20 paces, hold a piercing note longer than epoxy can stick and call in your dog when he’s three neighborhoods away. But you’re busy: Who has time to order all those specialty throat gargles off the internet, or send out your two-horned helmet and breastplate for regular cleaning? That’s where vi...

Skyword

Made in America: A rallying cry, a blunt instrument, a razor that might cut both ways. Our new president stoked the flames of the faithful with his “Make America Great Again” mantra, promising to return American manufacturing to heights unseen in two generations and to stock shelves with products that shine with their red, white, and blue provenance.
But there’s the noise of a simple slogan and then there’s the reality of the marketplace. Today’s supply chains girdle the globe, complicating m...